The principal dictionaries and bibliographic directories give 1619 as the year when the publishing activity of Giorgio Rola began, but a recently discovered contract between the Veneranda Fabbrica del Duomo and Rolla not only enables us to anticipate this date, but also throws light on the circumstances which led to the launching of their own business and adds to the information currently available on the history of this publishing family. The paper discusses the document and highlights some characteristics of the contractual practice of the time with regard to the publication of music; for instance, type characters and the hire of printing equipment, the rates charged, the forms of exclusive rights requested by the customer.

Giulia A. Romana Veneziano, Some Masses by Gennaro Manna: A contribution to the study of Mid-eighteenth Century Sacred Music Sources

A leading figure in the musical life of eighteenth-century Naples, Gennaro Manna devoted himself after 1761 solely to the composition of sacred music, composing a great number of Masses and Mass movements. The paper gives an analytical description of the manuscript sources available today, together with a study of scores and watermarks and a determination of the dating of the sources, supporting the discussion with many examples and facsimiles.

Not only librettos printed especially for the occasion, but also literary texts published independently of the performance are of particular importance for the repertoire of oratorios and sacred representations accompanied by music. The catalogue presented here is limited to a particular example in the Abruzzi, but nevertheless it provides an opportunity to identify texts and performances of sacred music which are not documented in any other way. Supported by indexes of names, publishers, printing presses and performance venues, dramatis personae and textual and chronological incipit, the catalogue gives an overview of sacred music in the Abruzzi from the beginning of the eighteenth century to the Union of Italy.

Renato Meucci, The Cataloguing of Musical Instruments

The appreciable activity of recovery, evaluation and cataloguing of musical instruments that has developed during the past few years has highlighted methodological problems regarding the terminology, classification, estimation and technical and iconographical documentation of the instruments themselves. The paper aims at giving a series of suggestions on the methods and procedures of cataloguing, accompanied by a specific bibliography, examples of data structures and references both to traditional Western and to ethnic musical instruments. In addition, Proposals for a descriptive catalogue of instruments belonging to the lute family edited by the Italian Lute Society is published in the appendix.

Pier Paolo Donati, The Conservation of Historic Organs in Italy Today

In 1991 the Italian Ministry for Cultural Affairs set up a National Commission to study and examine problems connected with the restoration of old organs. The task of the commission was to indicate guide-lines for a stricter procedure regarding the conservation and restoration of historic organs in Italy. Between the years 1991 and 1993, the Commission drew up first a «Decalogo delle negazioni» (the Ten Commandments of what should not be done when restoring organs) and then «Indicazioni normative» (suggestions for the correct methodological procedures to be adopted). Both documents were the subject of public discussion at two important conferences and are published integrally in this paper, together with the technical fact sheets.

Roberto Leydi, Discography of Italian Folk Music. I: Northern Italy

This paper deals with the discography of Northern Italian folk music, including all records (33, 45, 78 rpm and CD) and tapes located to date by the author. The actual project covers the whole of Italy, with the exception of the South Tyrol-Alto Adige region but including the other minorities and territories of Italian culture which lie outside the administrative frontiers. The «folk» concept has been strictly adhered to with regard to 33 rpm records and CDs, while with 45 and 78 rpm records and tapes the field has been enlarged to include «popular» music (partsinging choirs, folk groups, etc.).

The first part of the paper gives details on the possibility of information exchanges via telecommunication networks, in particular the geographical network INTERNET. The principal services offered by INTERNET are examined, as well as the various types of information available and the eventual difficulties encountered with the link; the appendix, instead, discusses some technical questions connected with the link. Suggestions are also made on the choice of hardware, software, modems and INTERNET access procedures. Finally, the last part of the paper gives some useful E-mail addresses, a list of electronic conferences that are of musicological interest and an example of on-line interrogation of the SBL data bank dedicated to music manuscripts and editions and of the data bank of the Discoteca di Stato.

Claudia Parmeggiani, Music Libraries in the Catalogue of Italian Libraries and in the Library Register Data Bank

Within the framework of its institutional mandate, the Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo Unico delle Biblioteche Italiane (Central Institute for the Uniform Cataloguing of Italian Libraries - Ministry for Cultural Affairs) undertook the census of all the libraries in Italy. The results of the project were assembled and published in the Catalogo delle Biblioteche d'Italia (Catalogue of Italian Libraries) and in a data bank entitled Anagrafe delle Biblioteche (Library Register), stored in the Index System of the National Library Service (SBN) and accessible via INTERNET. The paper gives information on the data stored for each library, compares these with the information structure utilized for the new edition of the Directory of Music Research Libraries and outlines the possibilities of online dialogue with the data bank. Technical fact sheets concerning the Italian census are published in the appendix.

Sound and audio-visual documents are among the most important sources of information with regard to the musical activity of our century; for this reason, a considerable work of cataloguing of the various collections is required. The paper analyses this work, taking as starting-point the two experimental projects launched by IRTeM: the Repertorio delle fonti sonore e audiovisive mozartiane esistenti in Italia (Index of the Mozartian Sound and Audio-visual Sources Existing in Italy) and the Repertorio delle fonti sonore e audiovisive rossiniane esistenti in Italia (Index of the Rossini Sound and Audio-visual Sources Existing in Italy). The paper not only describes the procedures for drawing up an inventory, but also gives in the appendix an example of a standard fact sheet, the Norme di repertoriazione (Guidelines of Indexing), an outline of the editorial results of the two projects and an indication of some of the most interesting documents catalogued.

Andrea Toschi, An Approach to a Comprehensive Catalogue of Italian XIX Century Dance Librettos

The last decades have witnessed an increased interest in existing collections of dance librettos as the source not only of information on single productions, but also of a considerable quantity of homogeneous data on the activity of choreographers, dancers, and other artists. The electronic processing of this kind of data requires the adoption of a common record format, in order both to store all relevant information and to facilitate exchanges between the various research centers. An experiment was therefore conducted on a limited scale, creating a research database of the librettos of every ballet staged in Rome during the XIX century. Despite its limitations, this database has appreciably increased available knowledge on the Roman production system and on the artists concerned. On the other hand, the careers of guest stars and choreographers can be followed only by a national survey of all the theatres which presented the variegated mosaic of XIX century Italian opera and ballet productions. The results of this experiment, and of other cataloguing efforts by different reseach groups, give an indication of what are the requirements for extending the database to cover all the production centers in Italy. Such a project, which could be actuated by teaming the work of existing research centers, wuold make accessible on-line an unprecedented wealth of data to dance historians.

Annalisa Bini, Research Projects of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia for the Study of Music Sources

During recent years, the National Academy of Santa Cecilia in Rome has launched four projects connected with the researching and publication of music sources. The first project concerned the rearrangement and computer cataloguing of the documents in the historical Archives of the Academy. The second, the intensive restoration of the Academy's Museum of Historic and Modern Instruments, its layout and catalogue. The Third, the computerized catalogue of the unpublished sound collections preserved in the Ethnomusicological Archive of the Academy. Finally, the fourth project covered the study and cataloguing of the library and epistolary of Jacopo Ferretti. The paper gives details on the progress of each project and on the first results obtained.